l earning from o thers : t op 10 m istakes in w eb d esign, i nformation a rchitecture, and a...
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LEARNING FROM OTHERS: TOP 10 MISTAKES IN WEB DESIGN, INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE, AND APPLICATION DESIGNJosephine M. Giaimo, MS
March 14th, 2014
WHAT WE’LL DISCUSS TODAY
Top 10 mistakes in design in EACH of the following categories: Web Design; Information Architecture; Application Design.
ABOUT ME User Advocate User Experience
Researcher/Strategist Clients/employers have
included AT&T, Lucent, Avaya, IITRI, NJIT, Sarnoff, Proctor & Gamble, Smirnoff, Y&R, etc.
Recently performed UX research on peer-to-peer networks and time banking for NSF at Xerox PARC
A BIG THANK YOU!
To Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D.
User Advocate, Researcher
Co-founder, Nielsen Norman Group
Described as the “Guru of Web Page Usability” (New York Times)
1. BAD SEARCH
Search engines that are overly literal
Can’t handle typos Search engines that
prioritize on number of query terms instead of importance
Simple search works best
For example:
No results for “youcrane”;
No results for “Ukrane”;
No results for “Ucrane”;
Oh, forget it. Let’s just search “Russia.”
2. PDF FILES FOR ONLINE READING
Users report hating PDFs which break flow
With PDFs, standard browser commands don’t work
A blob difficult to navigate
Reserve it for manuals
Convert the rest to a browse-able Web page
3. NOT CHANGING THE COLOR OF VISITED LINKS
Helps reader grasp site navigation
Prevents unintentional revisiting of same page over and over
Standard Unvisited: blue Visited: violet
4. TEXT THAT CANNOT BE SCANNED (BY A HUMAN BEING)
Write for online, not print, using Subheads Bulleted lists Highlighted keywords
Short paragraphs Inverted pyramid Simple writing style De-fluffed language,
devoid of marketese
5. FIXED FONT SIZE
CSS style sheets empower websites to disable the browser's “change font size” button
Let users resize text, and respect their preferences
Specify font size not as absolute number of pixels, but in relative terms
6. PAGE TITLES WITH LOW SEARCH ENGINE VISIBILITY
Page title is contained within HTML <title> tag
Page title is default entry when users bookmark a site
Start title with most salient, information-carrying words
7. ANYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE A ADVERTISEMENT
Users have selective attention
Users ignore legit design elements if they look like ads Banner blindness Animation Pop-up purges
8. VIOLATING DESIGN CONVENTIONS
When you break the users’ expectations, they will feel insecure
Jakob’s Law of the Web User Experience: “users spend most of their time on other websites.”
When you deviate, your users will leave
9. OPENING NEW BROWSER WINDOWS
Do not pollute the user’s screen with more windows
Taking over the user’s machine sends a user-hostile message
Misbehaving links undermine users’ understanding of their own system
10. NOT ANSWERING USERS’ QUESTIONS
Users are goal-driven
If you are not specific, users will assume your product/service does not meet their needs
Do you avoid listing the price of products/services?
TOP 10 INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE (IA) MISTAKESStructure is the invisible way the site is structured. Navigation is the visible way the site is structured. Both need to work together.
1. NO STRUCTURE
One big swamp search
Commonly found on News sites Catalog-based e-
commerce sites Users leave these
sites quickly, and there is no wonder as to why
2. SEARCH AND STRUCTURE NOT INTEGRATED
Users exhibit search-dominant behaviors
When a user searches and finds a target, does your site help the user learn the structure of the site?
What is user’s current location?
3. MISSING CATEGORY LANDING PAGES
Does your site have a series of categories that each link to their own landing pages?
4. EXTREME POLYHIERARCHY
Too many classification options
Can become a crutch
Too many structured dimensions
Results in low confidence early in the site experience, thwarting later experiences
5. SUBSITES/MICROSITES POORLY INTEGRATED WITH MAIN SITE
Subsites must be integrated within the overall site structure
6. INVISIBLE NAVIGATION OPTIONS
If a user cannot see the feature, it may as well not exist
Make navigation permanently visible on the page
Minesweeping (passing the mouse to see what is hidden) Children like it Teenagers don’t Adults hate it
7. UNCONTROLLABLE NAVIGATION ELEMENTS
Things that bounce/move detract from usability Overly sensitive
rollovers Elements that move,
spin, or rotate of their own accord
8. INCONSISTENT NAVIGATION
Is it a puzzle? Do options come
and go? Global navigation’s
persistence serves a key purpose—a beacon to help users understand where they are and how they can get back to the top of the site if lost.
9. TOO MANY NAVIGATION TECHNIQUES
Nielsen identified 25 different website navigation techniques
Each has pros/cons If you use all of
them, you get a mess!
10. MADE-UP MENU OPTIONS Make up their own terminology for labels and other navigation choices Less dominant than it used to be Hurts search Old words are better
TOP 10 APPLICATION DESIGN MISTAKESWorst mistakes are domain-specific, solving the wrong problem, having the wrong features, or making the right features too complicated.
1. NON-STANDARD GUI CONTROLS
May include Command links Radio buttons Checkboxes Scrollbars Close boxes, etc.
“Users have several thousand times more experience with standard GUI controls than with any individual new design.”—Jakob Nielsen
2. INCONSISTENCY When an application uses different words or commands for
the same thing, confusion results. What happens in Expedia when you want to book a trip that
starts on March 10 and ends on March 15?
3. NO PERCEIVED AFFORDANCE
“Affordance” means what you can do to an object
Users don’t have time for a minesweeping game
Symptoms Users say, “What do
I do here?” Users miss features Verbose
explanations
4. NO FEEDBACK
Show current state Tell users how their
commands have been interpreted
Tell users what’s happening
Don’t keep them guessing
5. BAD ERROR MESSAGES
The guidelines for error messages have been around for nearly 30 years
Explain how and why the user can fix the problem
Use error message as a teachable moment
7. NO DEFAULT VALUES
Defaults Speed up the
interaction Free user from
having to specify a value
Teach by example Direct novice users
towards a safe or common outcome
8. DUMPING USERS INTO THE APP
Users don’t have a pre-conceived conception of how something works
Provide a setup to give them an idea of what’s going to happen
Tell them what you are going to tell them
9. NOT INDICATING HOW INFO WILL BE USED
Asking users to enter info without telling them what you’ll use it for
Use of the nickname field for bulletin board applications Users don’t know
the purpose and enter something inappropriate
10. SYSTEM-CENTRIC FEATURES
Do you offer features that reflect the system’s view of data, or the user’s understanding of the problem space? Reallocation of
savings about various investments Confusion re existing
investments vs. future investments
BONUS MISTAKE: RESET BUTTON ON WEB FORMS
Almost always wrong to have a Reset button on a Web form Clear’s the user’s
entire input, and returns the form to its pristine state Facebook ad
application, 2014 Destroys user’s work
in a single click!
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Josephine M. Giaimo [email protected] @giaimojosephine 123 Johnson Street, Highland
Park, NJ 08904 (732) 448-0021, (732) 501-
6312